There was just enough snow to hold the Mushers Bowl in Bridgton last Saturday and Sunday.
There were more than enough mushers and skijorers to make the weekend a success.
The Mushers Bowl, which began at the Fryeburg Fairgrounds and was moved to Highland Lake in Bridgton, now calls Five Fields Farm in South Bridgton home.
Even then, the home was not hospitable last year as a lack of snow forced the cancellation of the event. This year, the snow drought postponed the bowl from late January to last weekend.
The yipping and baying heard throughout the parking lot meant there were a lot of dogs ready to run. Their owners were just as happy, if less noisy.
Scott Alexander, who raises 28 purebred Siberian huskies with his wife, Corinna, in Sanbornton, N.H., wanted to train the dogs to run 60 miles this year. Scant snow cover has eliminated the training time and the races he hoped to enter in Laconia, N.H. and in Vermont.
Alexander finished in second place in the adult four-dog class Saturday morning, steering through a twisting, 5.5-mile course that wound past an old cemetery and through an apple orchard before finishing with a steep climb to the finish line. His wife, who finished 10th in the same race, ran beside her dogs as they made their final climb.
The races attracted families who have embraced the sport. The Bells came down from Jackman, where Beth Bell said conditions have been good all winter for running the 19 mixed breed Alaskan huskies she raises with her husband, Jack, and sons, Juddie Bell, 10, and Joshua Mercure, 14.
“The course was awesome,” said Beth Bell as she ladled hot broth for her dogs. “I liked the variety and turns on the course. It makes the dogs have to think.”
A thinking dog turned out to be the downfall for Aisling Shepherd, 9, of Norway. A veteran musher who has been training since she was 3 and racing since 5, Shepherd set off with four dogs as her mother, Tara, told her how much she loved her.
Sometimes so nervous before her own races that she gets sick, Tara Shepherd said she was even more nervous for her daughter. Besides her moral support, she also lent her daughter her own lead dog, Tiger.
Midway through the course, the dogs wandered off the trail. Like many lead dogs, Tiger did not respond to a different voice as he would to Tara’s, and the team and Aisling Shepherd got an unplanned tour of the farm before organizers guided her and the dogs back to the trail.
Mildly bruised from where a sled clip caught her on the ear when the dogs went off course, Aisling Shepherd was not thrilled by the course, but ready to try it again Sunday with two dogs she has trained.
Sleds were not the only conveyance of the weekend as skijorers also got their time on the course. Skijoring involves a cross-country skier getting pulled by one or two dogs.
Skiers who wanted to sample the sport were given the chance before the races started. Dedicated skijorers like Rick Harbison of Windham, were just as eager to let the dogs run as the mushers.
“It’s something to reduce my dog’s insanity,” said Harbison about the sport and Blitz, her German shorthaired pointer. “He’s a great lap dog after a skijoring session.”
The postponement of the event from late January did not seem to affect attendance as cars filled the parking lot at the farm and both sides of Route 107. Hot chocolate, apple crisp, coffee and grilled food sold well throughout the weekend, but Wolfgang Hertell, visiting from a town near Frankfurt, Germany, asked about one item missing from the menu.
“Where can I buy some hot mulled wine?” asked Hertell as he watched his grandchildren sliding down a hill.
Dogs and mushers had been waiting all winter for the chance to run. It finally came at the Mushers Bowl in Bridgton last Saturday and Sunday. For more photos, see page 10.Send questions/comments to the editors.
